“I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.

Talk that Goldman bankers might have armed themselves in self-defense would sound ludicrous, were it not so apt a metaphor for the way that the most successful people on Wall Street have become a target for public rage.

Now, to make matters even stranger, the Union of Purple People Eaters (aka the SEIU) seems to relishing in the idea that the ‘bourgeoisie’ is arming itself against a ‘proletariat’ uprising.

That’s nothing, though, compared to today’s news. Bloomberg is reporting that Goldman Sachs execs are loading up on firearms “and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.” The NYPD confirmed that, in fact, senior-level Goldman executives are now packing heat to protect themselves from… us? [Emphasis in original.]

…before announcing another demonstration:

If we really want to get the message across, I guess we’re going to have to meet them in New York. On December 14th – around the time Wall Street banks are expected to announce their bonuses for 2009 – we’re gathering outside Goldman Sachs to suggest some alternate uses for that money.

And, this time, you can be a part of it even if you aren’t in New York. There will be dozens of actions taking place in cities across the country at the same time - all outside the big banks that have taken our tax dollars but done nothing to help get the economy moving again.

We’ll have the details at SEIU.org/bigbanks in the next few days about how you can get involved. I hope you’ll come out and join us. And I hope we won’t need to wear our bulletproof vests. [Emphasis in original.]

Forgetting the SEIU’s mocking tone, regardless of their (and Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, and other Democrats’) culpability in the financial morass the nation is in, Goldman Sachs execs are probably right to have a concern for their own safety.